‘He can’t even love with conviction,’ she thought.  ’What will Mother do?’

Her dreams that night were endless and uneasy; she rose heavy and unrested, and went at once to the study of Whitaker’s Almanac.  A Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of any situation.  She might conquer Jon’s prejudice, but without exact machinery to complete their desperate resolve, nothing would happen.  From the invaluable tome she learned that they must each be twenty-one; or some one’s consent would be necessary, which of course was unobtainable; then she became lost in directions concerning licenses, certificates, notices, districts, coming finally to the word “perjury.”  But that was nonsense!  Who would really mind their giving wrong ages in order to be married for love!  She ate hardly any breakfast, and went back to Whitaker.  The more she studied the less sure she became; till, idly turning the pages, she came to Scotland.  People could be married there without any of this nonsense.  She had only to go and stay there twenty-one days, then Jon could come, and in front of two people they could declare themselves married.  And what was more—­they would be!  It was far the best way; and at once she ran over her schoolfellows.  There was Mary Lambe who lived in Edinburgh and was “quite a sport!”

She had a brother too.  She could stay with Mary Lambe, who with her brother would serve for witnesses.  She well knew that some girls would think all this unnecessary, and that all she and Jon need do was to go away together for a weekend and then say to their people:  “We are married by Nature, we must now be married by Law.”  But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father’s face when he heard of it.  Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish.  No!  Mary Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to Scotland.  More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took a bus to Chiswick.  She was too early, and went on to Kew Gardens.  She found no peace among its flower-beds, labelled trees, and broad green spaces, and having lunched off anchovy-paste sandwiches and coffee, returned to Chiswick and rang June’s bell.  The Austrian admitted her to the “little meal-room.”  Now that she knew what she and Jon were up against, her longing for him had increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or dangerous paint such as they had tried to take from her as a child.  If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and all, she felt like dying of privation.  By hook or crook she must and would get him!  A round dim mirror of very old glass hung over the pink brick hearth.  She stood looking at herself reflected in it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept passing through her nerves.  Then she heard the bell ring, and, stealing to the window, saw him standing on the doorstep smoothing his hair and lips, as if he too were trying to subdue the fluttering of his nerves.